happy new years, america. we appear poised to dive off the fiscal cliff starting with a round of finger pointing today. this is classic gridlocked washington. why america is fed up with the lawmakers and all about pointing fingers, gaining the upper hand here. and also, gaming this out because if we do dive off the cliff an we don't get a deal in the next couple of days, which looks increasingly like where we're headed then we come back in january and have to negotiate again and a political advantage for both sides if that's the case. >> her's the thing. even if a deal does get done at this point, it's a small deal. much smaller deal than both sides said they wanted several months ago. the debt ceiling, will be back in two months. there's a good chance we are going to be revisiting a budget issue in march, as well. is this the new d.c. zachary? >> well, it's kind of an old d.c. and the current version, you know, 4.0. and you're absolutely right. it's convenient because there's a news hook for the fiscal cliff